I watched him advance, and when I saw him reach the heavily barred trellis which ran up to the second gallery, I felt confirmed in my suspicion that he was a burglar. Approaching carefully in the shadow, I made a rapid run at him, and as his head was turned at the time, managed to catch him about the neck by an arm. His face, thus thrown back, was illuminated by the flare of light. I saw him plainly. It was Gordon Orme!
The light disappeared. There was no cry from above. The great house, lying dark and silent, heard no alarm. I did not stop to reason about this, but tightened my grip upon him in so fell a fashion that all his arts in wrestling could avail him nothing. I had caught him from behind, and now I held him with a hand on each of his arms above the elbow. No man could escape me when I had that hold.
He did not speak, but struggled silently with all his power. At length he relaxed a trifle. I stood close to him, slipped my left arm under his left along his back, and caught his right arm in my left hand. Then I took from his pocket a pistol, which I put into my own. I felt in his clothing, and finally discovered a knife, hidden in a scabbard at the back of his neck. I drew it out--a long-bladed, ivory thing I found it later, with gold let into the hilt and woven into the steel.
He eased himself in my grip as much as he could, waiting; as I knew, for his chance to twist and grapple with me. I could feel him breathing deeply and easily, resting, waiting for his time, using his brains to aid his body with perfect deliberation.
"It"s no use, Orme," I said to him, finally. "I can wring your neck, or break your back, or twist your arms off, and by G.o.d! I"ve a notion to do them all. If you make any attempt to get away I"m going to kill you. Now come along."
I shoved him ahead of me, his arms pinioned, until we found a seat far away in a dark portion of the great front yard. Here I pushed him down and took the other end of the seat, covering him with his own pistol.
"Now," I demanded, "tell me what you are doing here."
"You have your privilege at guessing," he sneered, in his easy, mocking way. "Have you never taken a little adventure of this sort yourself?"
"Ah, some servant girl--at your host"s house. Excellent adventure. But this is your last one," I said to him.
"Is it so," he sneered. "Then let me make my prayers!" He mocked at me, and had no fear of me whatever.
"In Virginia we keep the shotgun for men who prowl around houses at night. What are you doing here?"
"You have no right to ask. It is not your house."
"There was a light," said I. "For that reason I have a right to ask. I am a guest, and a guest has duties as well as a host."
A certain change in mood seized him. "If I give you parole," he asked, "will you believe me, and let us talk freely?"
"Yes," said I at length, slowly. "You are a liar; but I do not think you will break parole."
"You gauge me with perfect accuracy," he answered. "That is why I wish to talk."
I threw the pistol on the seat between us. "What is it you want to know," I asked. "And again I ask you, why are you here, when you are supposed to be in South Carolina?"
"I have business here. You cost me my chance out there in the West," he answered, slowly. "In turn I cost you your chance there. I shall cost you other things here. I said you should pay my debt." He motioned toward my neck with his slim finger.
"Yes, you saved my life," I said, "and I have hated you for that ever since."
"Will you make me one promise?" he asked.
"Perhaps, but not in advance."
"And will you keep it?"
"If I make it."
"Will you promise me to do one thing you have already promised to do?"
"Orme, I am in no mood to sit here and gossip like an old woman."
"Oh, don"t cut up ugly. You"re done out of it all around, in any case.
Belknap, it seems, was to beat both you and me. Then why should not you and I try to forget? But now as to this little promise. I was only going to ask you to do as much as Belknap, or less."
"Very well, then."
"I want you to promise to marry Grace Sheraton."
I laughed in his face. "I thought you knew me better than that, Orme.
I"ll attend to my own matters for myself. I shall not even ask you why you want so puerile a promise. I am much of a mind to shoot you. Tell me, who are you, and what are you, and what are you doing in this country?"
"Do you really want to know?" he smiled.
"a.s.suredly I do. I demand it."
"I believe I will tell you, then," he said quietly. He mused for a time before he raised his head and went on.
"I am Charles Gordon Orme, Marquis of Bute and Rayne. Once I lived in England. For good reasons I have since lived elsewhere. I am what is known as a black sheep--a very, very black one."
"Yes, you are a retrograde, a renegade, a blackguard and a murderer," I said to him, calmly.
"All of those things, and much more," he admitted, cheerfully and calmly. "I am two persons, or more than two. I can"t in the least make all this plain to you in your grade of intelligence. Perhaps you have heard of exchangeable personalities?"
"I have heard of double personalities, and double lives," I said, "but I have never admired them."
"We will waive your admiration. Let me say that I can exchange my personality. The Jews used to say that men of certain mentality were possessed of a devil. I only say that I was a student in India. One phrase is good as another. The Swami Hamadata was my teacher."
"It would have been far better for you had you never known him, and better for many others," was my answer to his astonishing discourse.
"Perhaps; but I am only explaining as you have requested. I am a Raja Yogi. I have taken the eight mystic steps. For years, even here in this country, I have kept up the sacred exercises of breath, of posture, of thought."
"All that means nothing to me," I admitted simply.
"No, it means nothing for me to tell you that I have learned Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dyhana and Samadhi! Yes, I was something of an adept once. I learned calm, meditation, contemplation, introspection, super-conscious reasoning--how to cast my own mind to a distance, how to bring other minds close up to me.
But,"--he smiled with all his old mockery--"mostly I failed on Pratyahara, which says the senses must be quelled, subdued and set aside! All religions are alike to me, but they must not intrude on my own religion. I"d liefer die than not enjoy. My religion, I say, is to play the great games--to adventure, and above all, to enjoy! That is why I am in this country, also why I am in these grounds to-night."
"You are playing some deeper game than I know?"
"I always am! How could you be expected to understand what it took me years to learn? But I suppose in your case you need a few practical and concrete proofs. Let me show you a few things. Here, put your hand on my heart."
I obeyed. "You feel it beat?" he said. "Now it stops beating, does it not?" And as I live, it _had slopped_!
"Feel on the opposite side," he commanded. I did so, and there was his heart, clear across his body, and beating as before! "Now I shall stop it again," he remarked, calmly. And I swear it did stop, and resumed when he liked!
"Put your hand upon my abdomen," he said. I did so. All at once his body seemed thin and empty, as a spent coc.o.o.n.
"I draw all the organs into the thorax," he explained. "When one has studied under the Swami, as I have, he gains control over all his different muscles, voluntary and involuntary. He can, to a great extent, cut off or increase the nerve force in any muscle. Simple tricks in magic become easy to him. He gains, as you may suppose, a certain influence over men, and more especially over women, if that be a part of his religion. It was not with the Swami. It is with me!"
"You are a strange man, Orme," I said, drawing a long breath. "The most dangerous man, the most singular, the most immoral I ever knew."